Financial Inclusion: we need trust to drive the agenda

The African culture teaches us integrity and honesty; unfortunately, greed seems to have eroded these culture among the elites. It is an eye-opener for our participants at the on-going Design Thinking Workshop to discover that an average person on the street has no trust in the modern banking system. Unfortunately, the feeling seems to be mutual as the banks also appear to have developed solutions that are impossible to be accessed by these categories of people. 

Let me share with you some insights when we led our participants on field research concerning building an inclusive financial system in Nigeria. The good part, all the participants are from different Commercial banks. Some of the people they interacted with ranged from the millennials and to the elderly ones; literate and illiterate, gainfully employed and underemployed, professional and artisans. 

They engaged a group of four street cobblers as shown in the picture below. This group of boys are from Sokoto, North-west Nigeria, they are uneducated and never interested in the traditional financial system. They made an average of N1000 ($3) a day, and save NGN400 ($1.11) with a guy they all trust. When it is “raining season”, they collect their money and return to their home states to farm, and if they need to send money home in between season, they go to the guy, and he gives them their money without hassle. Such practices have been on for a very long time and have never failed them. They TRUST the man more than the bank. How do some of these people carry out a financial transaction and why don’t they use the conventional system? 

FUND Transfer: they remit their money to loved once by merely taking the money to the car parks and give it to the driver who now makes money to their loved ones in the villages. The system never failed, it is convenient, and they believe it is less expensive.

FEAR OF DEATH: they keep their money at home or with a community trusted system; therefore when they die there loved ones don't have difficulties accessing the wealth.

ACCESS To Credit: The individuals we interacted with lamented about how impossible it is to get loan credit from the banks; therefore they concluded that bank loan could only be accessed by salaries earner and the “money bags”. They get credit through trusted means including cooperatives. 

In conclusion, 36.8 per cent Nigerian are financially excluded; however, it is as high as 62 per cent in Northern states like Jigawa, Gombe and Yobe. Inclusion will be achievable when we develop a system that people can trust, when we set us a system that enable them to create strong values and when we create a system that helps them to get the job done.